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Coronavirus pandemic
Hong KongHong Kong economy

Coronavirus: vaccinations a must for future travel bubbles, minister says, as Hong Kong-Singapore tickets snapped up

  • Health experts agree Covid-19 testing, proper management of virus situation ‘enough’, commerce chief says in explaining why only one city is demanding jabs from would-be passengers
  • Hong Kong confirms eight new Covid-19 cases, five of them imported

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Hong Kong residents queue up for BioNTech vaccinations at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park Sports Centre in Sai Ying Pun. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
Kathleen Magramo
Full vaccination will be the baseline for Hong Kong residents hoping to take part in future travel bubbles, the city’s commerce minister has said, as flights for a new quarantine-free corridor with Singapore were rapidly filling up on Tuesday.
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Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau Tang-wah said future discussions on travel-bubble arrangements with other countries would be premised on outbound local travellers having had two coronavirus vaccine jabs. 

Hong Kong confirmed eight new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, taking its total infection tally to 11,748, with 209 related deaths. Three of the cases were locally transmitted, while two came from India, and the rest were imported from Indonesia, Japan and Turkey.

“I believe [vaccinations] are a good starting point to give people added protection when they travel,” Yau told a local radio programme.

Yau mentioned that New Zealand and Australia could be next in line if the arrangement with Singapore went well, but Taiwan, a popular travel destination for Hongkongers, was not on the government’s list at the moment. 

The Cathay Pacific website showed no available flights to Singapore for nearly the entirety of the initial travel bubble window on Tuesday. Photo: Winson Wong
The Cathay Pacific website showed no available flights to Singapore for nearly the entirety of the initial travel bubble window on Tuesday. Photo: Winson Wong

The long-awaited travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore, officially announced by the two governments on Monday, will now take off on May 26 after initial plans were put on pause last November amid a spike in Covid-19 infections in Hong Kong.

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